"The Fourth Shinobi World War is not merely a clash to replace the old order with the new; it is a profound collision between two fundamentally different philosophies of warfare."
Inside the grandest council hall of Sunagakure, high-ranking officials from over a dozen administrative branches—including the Jonin Commander Corps and the Department of Naval Warfare—were gathered together.
As the Fifth Kazekage, Shiraishi was currently outlining the paradigm shift of Sunagakure's future military strategy to the assembly.
"Traditional warfare in the shinobi world prioritized three core concepts: intelligence, mobility, and logistics. However, Sunagakure's upcoming doctrine will evolve toward large-scale saturation firepower, total information digitalization, and structured combat syndicates."
The concept of a world war proposed by Shiraishi completely rewrote the history books of the shinobi conflict.
As he spoke, a massive projection at the rear of the grand hall cast live combat footage from the Hidden Rain Village's northern base directly into the eyes of everyone present.
Shirogane Tsukasa's brow furrowed tightly as he vaguely recognized the elderly figure on the screen. "Is that... the Third Tsuchikage?"
Arakawa Arashi, the head of the Intelligence Department, shook his head solemnly. "Not just the Third Tsuchikage. The Four-Tails Jinchuriki, Roshi, and the Five-Tails Jinchuriki, Han, are there as well."
Iwagakure was currently conducting a massive military operation within the Land of Rain. However, looking at the live feed, they seemed to have walked straight into a meticulously prepared snare.
The remaining Rock ninjas on the perimeter were either heavily injured or incapacitated, leaving them entirely unable to provide any effective support to Iwagakure's three greatest powerhouses.
"Once severed from their logistical support system, this highly mobile Rock ninja vanguard immediately fell into a passive, isolated quagmire," Shiraishi explained smoothly. "They have become the optimal test subjects for our new generation of puppets."
Presently, Sunagakure had successfully launched barrier-equipped satellites into orbit. These arrays could not only establish defensive barriers along the planet's exosphere but could also maintain flawless real-time surveillance over the entire terrestrial surface.
Knowing that a war with the Otsutsuki clan was an absolute inevitability in the future, Shiraishi had proactively deployed a massive web of monitoring systems across the planet's circumference.
Aside from the macro-scale satellites, there were countless microscopic detection drones continuously scouring the globe, hunting for any traces of Otsutsuki movement.
In the seating area, Aoki Shigeru's Team 9 sat alongside Uzumaki Tomoki to observe the proceedings. Compared to the calm indifference of his two squadmates, the light gleaming within Gaara's eyes grew progressively brighter.
Particularly when the assembly disclosed that Sunagakure's first mass-produced production run of the new Hunter puppets had already crossed the 30,000 threshold.
When combined with Sunagakure's standing army of tens of thousands of regular shinobi, the village was fully capable of combating the other three great nations while simultaneously designating a significant force to guard against the White Zetsu threat.
Furthermore, a mechanized puppet army possessed an absolute immunity to the White Zetsu's shape-shifting infiltration and cloning capabilities...
This Fifth Kazekage had clearly prepared down to the absolute last detail before initiating this war.
In stark contrast, the Five Great Villages of Gaara's own original timeline had been completely toyed with by a mere handful of individuals, ultimately resulting in the entire world being ensnared within the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Based on Gaara's sensory perception, this universe was absolutely not a genjutsu constructs; rather, it was a tangible, authentic reality running parallel to his past.
However, it appeared that Mr. Onoki was going to find it exceptionally difficult to break through the net cast by this world's Fifth Kazekage.
This was because, outside of the two giant human-shaped puppets and the First Generation Hunter prototype, a full one thousand mass-produced Hunters were currently being silently deployed across the outer perimeter of the base.
Sunagakure's airborne cargo drop systems had entirely facilitated the successful deployment of such an immense puppet legion. High above the clouds aboard a massive aerial transport platform, dozens of puppet masters worked in perfect synchronicity with the Barrier Corps.
Their individual consciousnesses were perfectly integrated with the Reincarnation Core systems, enabling flawless, long-range remote teleoperation of the puppet vanguard.
On the utterly devastated battlefield, Onoki stared with an exhausted countenance at the two colossal human-shaped puppets hovering in the sky.
Ever since the tail end of the Third Shinobi World War, Sunagakure had consistently treated the Rock ninja battlefront as a testing ground for their newest automated weaponry.
Years ago, in the Mountain Range, Iwagakure had suffered catastrophic casualties under the Tailed Beast Bomb saturation of Sunagakure's first-generation mechanized dragons. Years later, Sunagakure still unerringly chose the Rock ninjas as their preferred combat targets.
But who could blame them when Iwagakure's defensive endurance was so famously renowned throughout the lands?
If Sunagakure didn't push these Rock ninjas to their absolute structural limits during field tests, were they supposed to go find squishier shinobi to test their weapons on instead?
This time, Iwagakure had predictably become the live firing range for a new class of puppet weaponry.
The two giant human-shaped angel puppets emitted a specialized electromagnetic containment field, severely restricting the physical movements of Iwagakure's three powerhouses.
The Tailed Beast Bombs rained down continuously like heralds of demise. Onoki, supreme as the Tsuchikage of his generation, manipulated his Particle Release to fight a bloody, desperate battle.
Yet, as the minutes ticked away, the condition of Onoki and his companions deteriorated exponentially.
Sunagakure's brand-new mechanical units gave the Tsuchikage a bitter taste of modern warfare. The instant the giant light blades cleaved downward, the very foundations of the earth shuddered.
The clay giants, Onoki, manifested through rapid hand seals, could not withstand a single slash from the human-shaped angels before crumbling into dust.
Countless circular mirror shields are scattered outward from all directions. Although Necrozma was piloting the primary Hunter unit to fight, its true physical form remained sealed away, which meant the destructive parameters of the emitted light remained strictly limited.
It was completely unable to execute a move as devastating as Photon Geyser.
Sensing the existential crisis, Roshi and Han simultaneously entered their full Tailed Beast state transformations.
Although they did not possess the flawless, symbiotic control over their inner beasts that the Two-Tails Jinchuriki enjoyed, the two, facing a critical life-or-death situation, did not hesitate to unleash their final trump cards.
The two colossal transformed beasts lunged violently toward the human-shaped puppets in the sky. However, the moment they drew near, a barrage of black crystalline stakes erupted outward, piercing deeply into their massive bodies.
These black crystals represented the absolute pinnacle of Sunagakure's current technological research; they were engineered to release a disruptive material resonance identical to the black receivers utilized by the Outer Path Demonic Statue, instantly throwing the normal chakra circulation of the Tailed Beasts into utter chaos.
The Four-Tails and Five-Tails instantly let out agonized, harrowing shrieks. Onoki realized the situation had turned disastrous.
Swerving his body to leap into the upper air currents, he began condensing his Particle Release onto a single point, only to find countless specialized energy spheres raining down upon him from the flanks.
One thousand mass-produced Hunter puppets had synchronized, the palms of their right hands housing a specialized light-source conduit that fired instantaneous, seal-less Rasengans.
Compared to Jiraiya's traditional version of the Rasengan, the Rasengans engineered by Shiraishi behaved more like the automated jutsu sealed within scientific ninja scrolls.
However, unlike the single-use nature of scrolls, the Rasengans channeled through the Hunters' palms directly siphoned natural energy from the surrounding environment to fire.
With a brief ten-second cooldown per cycle, they could indefinitely project these instantaneous Rasengans.
Naturally, alongside these energy projectiles, the Hunters were configured with auxiliary heavy firearms to ensure their long-range pressure remained continuous even during the one-minute weapon cooldowns.
A swarm of human-shaped puppets surged forward in unison, extending their left hands to firmly pin down the massive Tailed Beast forms of the two Jinchuriki.
Very quickly, an astonishing phenomenon manifested!
A massive torrent of chakra was violently drawn into the specialized pneumatic vents built into the palms of these human-shaped puppets, converting the stolen essence into their own driving power source.
They were actively devouring the chakra of the Tailed Beasts!
The vents in the right hand were designed for offensive output, while the vents in the left hand were explicitly engineered for chakra absorption.
This was quite clearly a brand-new technological breakthrough Shiraishi had harvested after meticulously dissecting and analyzing the corpses of the Six Paths of Pain.
Moments later, Roshi and Han simultaneously plummeted out of the sky in their human forms, heavily incapacitated, before being promptly pinned down and apprehended by Sunagakure's puppet brigade.
"Roshi! Han!"
Onoki's gaze filled with absolute horror as he witnessed the scene. The modern doctrine and tactical measures utilized by Sunagakure had completely bypassed everything this elderly veteran understood about the nature of shinobi warfare.
🌟 The story is already written… waiting to be unleashed. Claim early access on Patreon: Patreon.com/kazama677
🔓 You hold the keys to bonus chapters:💬 10 reviews ignite 1 bonus chapter🔷 100 Power Stones summon another
🔥 Your power determines how fast the tale unfolds.